Getting started
Getting started with CartSpan.
Nobody likes surprises. Here’s what happens from your first call to CartSpan® posting orders on its own, and what to have ready before we install.
Three steps
Talk first. Prepare. Then we set it up with you.
A short call
Usually 5 to 10 minutes: your store, your books and how you work. If CartSpan isn’t the right fit, we’ll say so before anyone spends time on it.
Your preparation
Your store and your books ready for real orders (the checklist below), plus a short checklist for your accounting program that we send you.
Install and trial, together
We install and configure CartSpan with you remotely, in about an hour, then you run a free 10-day trial on your own orders.
Before we install
Have these in place.
- Your store, ready to sell, with at least one order waiting to download. Switch on every feature you plan to use, so the trial shows how each one imports: freight, tax, discounts and coupons, gift certificates, surcharges and handling.
- Your books, ready to receive it: a chart of accounts that covers what your store sends, such as freight, sales tax and fees.
- Your accounting checklist, which we send after the call: for example a read-only QODBC license for QuickBooks Pro or Premier ($149 per user a year, FLEXquarters, checked October 13, 2026; Enterprise includes it), or ODBC access in Sage 50.
Self-hosted carts
WooCommerce, Magento and other carts on your own server.
- CartSpan works with the standard version of each cart, plus the widely used extensions named on its page (all integrations).
- For carts on your own web server, CartSpan supplies two small PHP scripts. They’re encoded, so your server needs the matching free loader (ionCube or SourceGuardian); most hosts already have it.
- Hosted stores such as Shopify, BigCommerce and Squarespace need nothing on a server: CartSpan connects through their own API.
What it runs on
A Windows PC beside your books.
- QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Premier or Enterprise 2023 or newer, or Sage 50 U.S. 2024 or newer.
- Your own PC or server, or a third-party host such as Summit Hosting or Ace Cloud Hosting.
- CartSpan is a program you leave open; that computer needs to be on. After a restart, open CartSpan again and it picks up where it left off.
After the trial
Buy when it works.
- Buy the license from inside CartSpan: $495, including the first 12 months of updates and support if CartSpan misbehaves.
- Then $299 a year for maintenance, from year two.
- It runs on one computer; move it by deactivating the old one.
Ready for the short call?
We welcome calls about your project and integration needs. 8 am–5 pm Eastern, Monday to Friday.